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Friday, November 14, 2014

Avoid crazed shopping crowds! Keep calm and carry on at home with these great Merr-E Holiday Treats from Pocket Star eBooks!

Rocky Mountain Miracle
By Christine Feehan
November 17, 2014
$3.99

SUMMARY:

When Cole Steele, a womanizer rumored to have killed his father, meets Maia Armstrong, a veterinarian rumored to practice magic, the sizzling romance could melt all the snow on his Wyoming ranch.

And when an injured horse brings them together, Cole can’t help but believe that Maia casts spells on animals—and men. What else could explain the burning passion he feels for her and the thawing of his heart just in time for Christmas?

EXCERPT:

Cole
Steele could hear the screams coming from the room down the hall. He
knew those nightmares intimately, because the demons also visited him
every time he closed
his own eyes. He was a grown man, hard and disciplined and well able to
drink his way through the night if necessary, but Jase was just a young
teenager. Guilt edged his anger as he made his way through the dark to
the boy’s room. He should have done something,
to spare his half brother the horrendous legacy of his own past.

In
truth, he hadn’t been in touch with his father for years. It hadn’t
occurred to him that his father would remarry a much younger woman and
produce another child,
but he should have considered the possibility, not just dropped off the
face of the earth. Cole shoved open the bedroom door. Jase was already
fully awake, his eyes wide with the terror of his memories. Something
twisted hard and painfully in Cole’s chest.

“I’m
here, Jase,” he announced unnecessarily.He wasn’t good at soothing the
boy. He had been born and bred in roughness and still had a difficult
time being gentle.
Worse, Jase barely knew him. He was asking the teenager to trust him in
spite of his reputation and the rumors of attempted murder flying freely
through the town. It was no wonder the boy regarded him with some
suspicion. “I hate Christmas. Can’t we just make
it go away?” Jase asked. He threw back the covers and paced across the
room, the same edgy tension in his teenage body that Cole had in
abundance as a grown man. Jase was tall and gangly, like a young colt,
all arms and legs, looking a bit like a scarecrow
in flannel pajamas.He had Cole’s dark hair, but his eyes must have been
his mother’s, as they were a deep, rich brown. Right now, his eyes were
wide with terror, and he turned away to hide his trembling.

Cole
felt as if he were looking at himself as a youngster, only Jase had
poured himself into books and Cole had become a hellion. Cole knew what
it was like to hide
the bruises and the terror from the rest of the world. He had grown up
living in isolation and hiding, and he still lived that way, but he
would be damned if this boy would endure the same.

“Did
he shoot your dog for Christmas?” Cole asked bluntly. “That’s what he
did for me the last time I wanted to celebrate the holiday like my
friends. I haven’t ever
wanted a Christmas since.He also beat the holy hell out of me, but that
was insignificant next to the dog.”

Jase faced him slowly. The horror was still all too stark in his eyes. “I had a cat.”

“I’ll
bet he said you weren’t tough enough and that only sissies needed pets
and Christmas. He wanted you to toughen up and be a man. Not get
attached to anything.”

Jase nodded, swallowing an obvious lump in his throat.

“He did a lot of things.”

“You
have burn marks? Scars from cuts? He liked to whip me with a coat
hanger. And when I didn’t cry, he took to using other things.”

“I cried,” Jase admitted.

“I
did too, at first. He was a mean son of bitch, Jase. I’m glad he’s
dead. He can’t touch you anymore. I’m not going to lie to you and tell
you the nightmares go away
because I still have them. We both lived in hell and he had too much
money for anyone to want to believe us.” Cole rubbed his hands through
his thick black hair.

“He
was sick, Jase. I got out, changed my name thinking he’d never find me,
and stayed as far from him as I could possibly get. That’s no excuse. I
should have kept
tabs on him. Maybe I could have gotten you away from him.”

Jase shook his head. “He never would have let me go.”

“You know what they’re all saying, don’t you? They think I had something to do with his death.”

“I
was named your guardian in his will. It was the first I’d heard of you.
I didn’t know you existed until five months ago. I knew he must have
done the same thing
to you and your mother that he did to me and mine. I thought I could
protect you, at least until you’re old enough to live on your own. I
figured I would be a better guardian than anyone else the court might
appoint or that our father had named if I didn’t
accept.”

Dawn
was creeping in through the huge plate-glass window. Cole watched the
sun come up. It was cold, and the ground outside was covered with
several feet of snow, turning
the hills into a carpet of sparkling crystals. “You hungry?”

“Are you cooking?”

Cole
managed a lazy shrug even though he really wanted to smash something.
It was always there, that volcano inside him, waiting to erupt. The
thought of his father,
the time of year, it wasn’t all that difficult to bring rage to the
surface. “I thought we’d go into town and give them all something more
to gossip about.”

Jase
met Cole’s eyes squarely. “They say you killed the old man and that
you’re planning to kill me next. Sixtyfour million dollars is a lot of
money, twice as much
as thirty-two.”

“They
do say that, don’t they?” Cole said. “And don’t forget the ranch. It’s
worth twice that easily, maybe more with the oil and gas deposits. I
haven’t actually checked
into how much yet.”His eyes had gone ice-cold, a piercing blue stare
that impaled the boy. “What do you say, Jase? Because in the end, you’re
the only one that counts as far as I’m concerned.”

Jase
was silent a long time. “I say I’m glad you came back. But I don’t
understand why he left us the money and the ranch when he hated us both
so much. It doesn’t
make any sense.” He looked around the enormous room, frowning.

“I
keep expecting him to show up in the middle of the night. I’m afraid to
open my eyes because I know he’s standing over the bed, just waiting.”

“With that smile.”Cole’s voice was grim.

Jase
nodded, a small shudder betraying the fact that he wasn’t as calm as he
tried to seem. “With that smile.” He looked at Cole. “What do you do
when the nightmares
come?” He punched his fist into his pillow. Once. Twice. “I hate this
time of year.”

Cole
felt a sharp pain in his chest and the familiar churning in his gut.
His own hand balled into a fist, but he tamped down the smoldering anger
and hung on to control
for the boy’s sake. “I drink. I’m your guardian, so I have to say that’s
not allowed for you. At least not until you’re a hell of a lot older.”

“Does it work?”

“No,”
Cole said grimly. Honestly. “But it gets me through the night.
Sometimes I go to the workout room or the barn. I hung a heavy bag in
both places, and I beat on
them until my hands hurt. Other times I take the wildest horse we have
and go out into the mountains. I run the hills, using the deer trails,
anything to make me so tired I can’t think anymore.”

“None
of that works either, does it?” Jase had tried physical activity as
well, but he was finding that talking quietly with his half brother was
helpful. More helpful
than anything else he’d tried. At least one person believed him. And one
person had gone through the same torment. It created a bond in spite of
the ugly rumors that surrounded his tough, harder-than-nails half
brother.

Cole
shook his head. “No, none of it works, but it gets you through the
night. One night at a time. He’s dead, Jase, and that’s all that
matters.”

Jase took a deep breath. “Did you kill him?”

“No,
but I wish I had. I used to lie awake at night and plan how I’d do it.
That was before Mom died. Then I just wanted to get out.” Cole studied
the boy’s face. “Did
you kill him?” He concentrated his gaze on the boy. Every nuance. Every
expression, the way he breathed. The flick of his eyes. The trembling of
his hands.

Jase shook his head. “I was too afraid of him.”

Cole
let his breath out slowly. He had stayed alive using his ability to
read others, and he was fairly certain that Jase was telling the truth.
Jase had been in the
house when someone had shot Brett Steele right there in his own office.
He wanted to believe that the boy wasn’t involved in Brett Steele’s
death. Cole wasn’t certain how he would have handled it if Jase had
admitted he’d done it, and for a man in Cole’s profession,
that wasn’t a good thing.

“Cole,
did he kill your mother?” For the first time, Jase sounded like a child
rather than a fourteen-year-old trying to be a man. He sank down onto
the bed, his thin
shoulders shaking. “I think he killed my mother. They said she was
drinking and drove off the bridge, but she never drank. Never. She was
afraid to drink. She wanted to know what was happening all the time. You
know what he was like, he’d be nice one minute
and come after you the next.”

Brett
Steele had been a sadistic man. It was Cole’s belief that he had killed
for the sheer rush of having the power of life and death over anything,
human or animal.
He’d enjoyed inflicting pain, and he had tortured his wives and children
and every one of his employees. The ranch was huge, a long way from
help, and once he had control over those living on his lands, he never
relinquished it. Cole knew he’d been lucky to
escape.

“It’s
possible. I think the old man was capable of paying everyone off from
coroners to police officers. He had too much money and power for anyone
to cross him. It
would be easy enough for a medical examiner to look the other way if
there was enough money in bribes. And if that didn’t work, there were
always threats. We both know the old man didn’t make idle threats; he’d
carry them out.”

“Maybe. Probably.” Cole needed a drink. “Let’s go into town and get breakfast.”

“Okay.”
Jase pulled a pair of jeans from the closet. They were neatly hung and
immaculately clean, just like everything else in the room.“Who do you
think killed him?
If it wasn’t either of us, someone else had to have done it.”

“He
made a lot of enemies. He destroyed businesses and seduced as many of
his friends’wives as possible. And if he killed anyone else, as I
suspect he must have, someone
could have known and retaliated. He liked to hurt people, Jase. It was
inevitable that he would die a violent death.”

“Were you surprised he left you the money and guardianship over me?”

“Yes,
at first. But later I thought maybe it made sense. He wanted us to be
like him. He had me investigated and found I spent time in jail. I think
he believed I was
exactly like him. And the only other choice of a guardian he had was
your uncle, and you know how much they despised one another.”

Jase
sighed.“Uncle Mike is just as crazy as Dad was. All he talks about is
sin and redemption. He thinks I need to be exorcised.”

Cole
swore, a long string of curses. “That’s a load of crap, Jase. There’s
nothing wrong with you.” He needed to move, to ride something hard, it
didn’t matter what
it was. A horse, a motorcycle, a woman, anything at all to take away the
knots gathering in his stomach. “Let’s get out of here.”

He
turned away from the boy, a cold anger lodged in his gut. He detested
Christmas, detested everything about it. No matter how much he didn’t
want the season to start,
it always came. He woke up drenched in sweat, vicious laughter ringing
in his ears. He could fight the demons most of the year, but not when
Christmas songs played on the radio and in every store he entered. Not
when every building and street displayed decorations
and people continually wished each other “Merry Christmas.” He didn’t
want that for Jase. He had to find a way to give the boy back his life.

Counseling
hadn’t helped either of them. When no one believed a word you said, or
worse, was bought off, you learned to stop trusting people. If Cole
never did another
thing right in his life, he was going to be the one person Jase would
know he could always trust. And he was going to make certain the boy
didn’t turn out the way he had. Or the way their father had.

The
brothers walked through the sprawling ranch house. The floors were all
gleaming wood, the ceilings open-beamed and high. Brett Steele had
demanded the best of everything,
and he got it. Cole couldn’t fault him on his taste.

“Cole,” Jase asked, “why were you in jail?”

Cole
didn’t break stride as he hurried through the spacious house. At times
he wanted to burn the thing down. There was no warmth in it, and as hard
as he’d tried to
turn the showpiece into a home for Jase, it remained cold and barren.

Outdoors
it was biting cold. The frost turned the hills and meadows into a world
of sparkling crystal, dazzling the eyes, but Cole simply ignored it,
shoving his sunglasses
onto his face. He went past the huge garage that housed dozens of
cars—all toys Brett Steele had owned and rarely ever used—to go to his
own pickup.

Cole
paused, the key in the ignition. He glanced at the boy’s flushed face.
“It isn’t that, Jase. I don’t mind you asking me anything. I made up my
mind I’d never lie
to you about anything, and I’m not quite certain how to explain the jail
time. Give me a minute.”

Jase
nodded. “I don’t mind that you’ve been in jail, but it worries me
because Uncle Mike says he’s going to take you to court and get custody
of me. If I lived with
him, I’d spend all my life on my knees, praying for my soul. I’d rather
run away.”

“He
can’t get you away from me,” Cole promised, his voice grim. There was a
hard edge to the set of his mouth. He turned his piercing blue gaze
directly on his young
half brother. “The one thing I can promise is I’ll fight for you until
they kill me, Jase.” He was implacable, the deadly ruthless stamp of
determination clear on his face.“No one is going to take you away from
me. You got that?”

Jase
visibly relaxed. He nodded, a short jerky gesture as he tried to keep
his emotions under control. Cole wasn’t certain if that was good or bad.
Maybe the boy needed
to cry his eyes out. Cole never had. He would never give his father the
satisfaction, even when the bastard had nearly killed him.

It
was a long way to the nearest town. There had been numerous guards at
the ranch when his father was alive, supposedly for security, but Cole
knew better. Brett had
needed his own private world, a realm he could rule with an iron fist.
The first thing Cole had done was to fire all of the ranch hands, the
security force, and the housekeeper. If he could have had them
prosecuted for their participation in Brett’s sadistic
depravities, he would have. Jase needed to feel safe. And Cole needed to
feel as if he could provide the right atmosphere for the boy. They had
interviewed the new ranch hands together, and they were still looking
for a housekeeper.

“You, know, Jase, you never picked out one of the horses to use,” Cole said.

Jase
leaned forward to fiddle with the radio. The cab was flooded with a
country Christmas tune. Jase hastily went through the stations, but all
he could find was Christmas
music and he finally gave up in exasperation. “I don’t care which one I
ride,” Jase said, and turned his head to stare out the window at the
passing scenery. His voice was deliberately careless.

“You
must have a preference,” Cole persisted. “I’ve seen you bring the big
bay, Celtic High, a carrot every now and then.” The boy had spent a
little time each day,
brushing the horse and whispering to it, but he never rode the bay.
Jase’s expression closed down instantly, his eyes wary. “I don’t care
about any of them,” he repeated.

Cole
frowned as he slipped a CD into the player. “You know what the old man
was all about, don’t you, Jase? He didn’t want his sons to feel
affection or loyalty to
anything or anyone. Not our mothers, not friends, and not animals. He
killed the animals in front of us to teach us a lesson. He destroyed our
friendships to accomplish the same thing. He got rid of our mothers to
isolate us, to make us wholly dependent on
him. He didn’t want you ever to feel emotion, especially affection or
love for anything or anyone else. If he succeeded in doing that to you,
he won. You can’t let him win. Choose a horse and let yourself care for
it. We’ll get a dog if you want a dog, or
another cat. Any kind of pet you want, but let yourself feel something,
and when our father visits you in your nightmares, tell him to go to
hell.”

“You
didn’t do that,” Jase pointed out. “You don’t have a dog. You haven’t
had a dog in all the years you’ve been away. And you never got married.
I’ll bet you never
lived with a woman. You have one-night stands and that’s about it
because you won’t let anyone into your life.” It was a shrewd guess.

Cole
counted silently to ten. He was psychoanalyzing Jase, but he damned
well didn’t want the boy to turn the spotlight back on him. “It’s a hell
of a way to live,
Jase. You don’t want to use me as a role model. I know all the things
you shouldn’t do and not many you should. But cutting yourself off from
every living thing takes its toll. Don’t let him do that to you. Start
small if you want. Just choose one of the horses,
and we’ll go riding together in the mornings.”

Jase
was silent, his face averted, but Cole knew he was weighing the matter
carefully. It meant trusting Cole further than perhaps Jase was willing
to go. Cole was
a big question mark to everyone, Jase especially. Cole couldn’t blame
the boy. He knew what he was like. Tough and ruthless with no backup in
him. His reputation was that of a vicious, merciless fighter, a man born
and bred in violence. It wasn’t like he knew
how to make all the soft, kind gestures that the kid needed, but he
could protect Jase. “Just think about it,” he said to close the subject.
Time was on his side. If he could give Jase back his life, he would
forgive himself for not bringing the old man down
as he should have done years ago. Jase had had his mother, a woman with
love and laughter in her heart. More than likely Brett had killed her
because he couldn’t turn Jase away from her. Jase’s mother must have
left some legacy of love behind.

Cole
had no one. His mother had been just the opposite of Jase’s. His mother
had had a child because Brett demanded she have one, but she went back
to her modelthin
figure and cocaine as soon as possible, leaving her son in the hands of
her brutal husband. In the end, she’d died of an overdose. Cole had
always suspected his father had had something to do with her death. It
was interesting that Jase suspected the same
thing of his own mother’s death.

A
few snowflakes drifted down from the sky, adding to the atmosphere of
the season they both were trying so hard to avoid. Jase kicked at the
floorboard of the truck,
a small sign of aggression, then glanced apologetically at Cole.

“Maybe we should have opted for a workout instead,” Cole said.

“I’m
always hungry,” Jase admitted. “We can work out after we eat. Who came
up with the idea of Christmas anyway? It’s a dumb idea, giving presents
out when it isn’t
your birthday.And it can’t be good for the environment to cut down all
the trees.”

Cole
stayed silent, letting the boy talk, grateful Jase was finally
comfortable enough to talk to him at all. “Mom loved Christmas. She used
to sneak me little gifts.
She’d hide them in my room. He always had spies, though, and they’d tell
him. He always punished her, but she’d do it anyway. I knew she’d be
punished, and she knew it too, but she’d still sneak me presents.” Jase
rolled down the window, letting the crisp,
cold air into the truck. “She sang me Christmas songs. And once, when he
was away on a trip, we baked cookies together. She loved it. We both
knew the housekeeper would tell him, but at the time, we didn’t care.”

Cole
cleared his throat. The idea of trying to celebrate Christmas made him
ill, but the kid wanted it. Maybe even needed it, but had no clue that
was what his nervous
chatter was all about. Cole hoped he could pull it off. There were no
happy memories from his childhood to offset the things his father had
done.

“We tried to get away from him, but he always found us,” Jase continued.

“He’s
dead, Jase,” Cole repeated. He took a deep breath and took the plunge,
feeling as if he was leaping off a steep cliff. “If we want to bring a
giant tree into
his home and decorate it, we can. There’s not a damn thing he can do
about it.”

“He might have let her go if she hadn’t wanted to take me with her.”

Cole
heard the tears in the boy’s voice, but the kid didn’t shed them.
Silently he cursed, wishing for inspiration, for all the right things to
say. “Your mother was
an extraordinary woman, Jase, and there aren’t that many in the world.
She cared about you, not the money or the prestige of being Mrs. Brett
Steele. She fought for you, and she tried to give you a life in spite of
the old man. I wish I’d had the chance to
meet her.”

Jase
didn’t reply, but closed his eyes, resting his head back against the
seat. He could still remember the sound of his mother’s voice. The way
she smelled. Her smile.
He rubbed his head.Mostly he remembered the sound of her screams when
his father punished her.

“I’ll think about the Christmas thing, Cole. I kind of like the idea of decorating the house when he always forbade it.”

Cole
didn’t reply. It had been a very long few weeks, but the Christmas
season was almost over. A couple more weeks, and he would have made it
through another December.
If doing the Christmas thing could give the kid back his life, Cole
would find a way to get through it. The town was fairly big and offered a
variety of latenight and early-morning dining. Cole chose a diner he
was familiar with and parked the truck in the
parking lot. To his dismay, it was already filled with cars. Unfolding
his large frame, he slid from the truck, waiting for Jase to get out.

“You forgot your jacket,” he said.

“No, I didn’t. I hate the thing,” Jase said.

Cole
didn’t bother to ask him why.He already knew the answer and vowed to
buy the kid a whole new wardrobe immediately. He pushed open the door to
the diner, stepping
back to allow Jase to enter first. Jase took two steps into the entryway
and stopped abruptly behind the high wall of fake ivy. “They’re talking
about you, Cole,” he whispered. “Let’s get out of here.”

The
voices were loud enough to carry across the small restaurant. Cole
stood still, his hand on the boy’s shoulder to steady him. Jase would
have to learn to live with
gossip, just as he’d learned to survive the nightmare he’d been born
into.

“You’re
wrong, Randy. Cole Steele murdered his father, and he’s going to murder
that boy. He wants the money. He never came around here to see that boy
until his daddy
died.”

“He
was in jail, Jim, he couldn’t very well go visiting his relatives,” a
second male voice pointed out with a laugh. Cole recognized Randy Smythe
from the local agriculture
store. Before he could decide whether to get Jase out of there or show
the boy just how hypocritical the local storeowners could be, a third
voice chimed in.

“You
are so full of it, Jim Begley,” a female voice interrupted the argument
between the two men. “You come in here every morning grousing about
Cole Steele. He was
cleared as a suspect a long time ago and given guardianship of his half
brother, as he should have been. You’re angry because your bar buddies
lost their cushy jobs, so you’re helping to spread the malicious gossip
they started. The entire lot of you sound
like a bunch of sour old biddies.” The woman never raised her voice. In
fact, it was soft and low and harmonious. Cole felt the tone strumming
inside of him, vibrating and spreading heat. There was something magical
in the voice, more magical than the fact
that she was sticking up for him.His fingers tightened involuntarily on
Jase’s shoulder. It was the first time he could ever remember anyone
sticking up for him. “He was in jail, Maia,” Jim Begley reiterated, his
voice almost placating.

“So
were a lot of people who didn’t belong there, Jim. And a lot people who
should have been in jail never were. That doesn’t mean anything. You’re
jealous of the man’s
money and the fact that he has the reputation of being able to get just
about any woman he wants, and you can’t.” A roar of laughter went up.
Cole expected Begley to get angry with the woman, but surprisingly, he
didn’t. “Aw, Maia, don’t go getting all mad
at me. You aren’t going to do anything, are you? You wouldn’t put a hex
on my . . . on me, would you?”

The
laughter rose and this time the woman joined in. The sound of her voice
was like music. Cole had never had such a reaction to any woman, and he
hadn’t even seen
her.

“You
just never know about me, now do you, Jim?” She teased, obviously not
angry with the man. “It’s Christmas, the best time of the year. Do you
think you could stop
spreading rumors and just wait for the facts? Give the man a chance. You
all want his money. You all agree the town needs him, yet you’re so
quick to condemn him. Isn’t that the littlest bit hypocritical?”

Cole
was shocked that the woman could wield so much power, driving her point
home without ever raising her voice. And strangely, they were all
listening to her. Who
was she, and why were these usually rough men hanging on her every word,
trying to please her? He found himself very curious about a total
stranger—a woman at that. “Okay, okay,” Jim said. “I surrender, Maia.
I’ll never mention Cole Steele again if that will
make you happy. Just don’t get mad at me.”

Maia
laughed again. The carefree sound teased all of Cole’s senses, made him
very aware of his body and its needs. “I’ll see you all later. I have
work to do.”

Cole
felt his body tense. She was coming around the ivy to the entrance.
Cole’s breath caught in his throat. She was on the shorter side, but
curvy, filling out her
jeans nicely. A sweater molded her breasts into a tempting invitation.
She had a wealth of dark, very straight hair, as shiny as a raven’s
wing, pulled into a careless ponytail. Her face was exotic, the bone
structure delicate, reminding him of a pixie.

She
swung her head back, her wide smile fading as she saw them standing
there. She stopped short, raising her eyes to Cole’s. He actually
hunched a little, feeling
the impact in his belly. Little hammers began to trip in his head, and
his body reacted with an urgent and very elemental demand. A man could
drown in her eyes, get lost, or just plain lose every demon he had. Her
eyes were large, heavily lashed, and some
color other than blue, turquoise maybe, a mixture of blue and green that
was vivid and alive and so darned beautiful he ached inside just
looking at her.

Jase nudged him in the ribs.

Cole
reacted immediately. “Sorry, ma’am.” But he didn’t move. “I’m Cole
Steele. This is my brother, Jase.” Jase jerked under his hand, reacting
to being acknowledged
as a brother.

The woman nodded at Cole and flashed a smile at Jase as she stepped around them to push open the door.

“Holy cow,” Jase murmured. “Did you see that smile?” He glanced up at Cole. “Yeah, you saw it all right.”

“Was I staring?” Cole asked.

“You
looked like you might have her for breakfast,” Jase answered. “You can
look really intimidating, Cole. Scary.” Cole almost followed the woman,
but at the boy’s
comment he turned back. “Am I scary to you, Jase?”

The boy shrugged. “Sometimes. I’m getting used to you. I’ve never seen you smile. Ever.”

Cole raised his eyebrow. “I can’t remember actually smiling. Maybe I’ll have to practice. You can work with me.”

“Don’t you smile at women?”

“I don’t have to.”

AUTHOR:

Christine Feehan is the #1
New York Times bestselling author of thirty novels, including the
Carpathians, the Ghostwalkers, the Leopard People, and the Drake Sisters
series. Her books have been published in multiple languages and in many
formats including palm pilot, audiobook, and
ebook. She has been featured in Time magazine and Newsweek, and lives in Cobb, California. Please visit
http://www.christinefeehan.com/.

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